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UKPoliticsGuy

macrumors regular
Original poster
May 3, 2009
228
410
Where's VLC and AV Player gone? I had always thought they were available on the App Store.

Seems they are not, what are your best suggestions for apps to play videos on the iPad?
 

kevroc

macrumors 6502
Oct 15, 2011
467
126
Where's VLC and AV Player gone? I had always thought they were available on the App Store.

Seems they are not, what are your best suggestions for apps to play videos on the iPad?

Cineplayer is pretty good. At least you can play mkv files and have it connect to your dropbox account. Outside of that it's pretty slim. I wish they had some of the android players on iOS, I love the ability to swipe to control volume and seek the video, the scrubbing on the built-in video player is horrible at best.
 

yegon

macrumors 68040
Oct 20, 2007
3,402
1,979
AVPlayerHD by some margin. Tried a few, this is by far the best in my opinion at playing back locally stored content. Supports hardware decoding of mkv's. For streaming, look elsewhere.

Be aware that most players don't support AC3 audio due to licensing issues. AVPlayerHd does. It disappeared off the store for ages for this reason, but returned a month or so ago.
 
Last edited:

ActionableMango

macrumors G3
Sep 21, 2010
9,612
6,907
eXPlayer

It really depends on what your needs are. I have tried a few video players and all have their pros and cons.

I personally use eXPlayer because:

(1) I can skip forward and backward in a video using the scrubber bar and it always works. For some reason this seems to be a problematic feature in virtually all video players, even the venerable VLC desktop application.
(2) It supports the iPad's hardware video acceleration which provides smooth video and saves a ton of battery use. The vast majority of video apps do not use the iPad's acceleration so they drop frames on HQ video and blow away your battery.
(3) It supports SMB, so simply turn on file sharing for your Mac, PC, or SMB-capable NAS and you can view any video on your networked computer. This was crucial for me. I don't want to have to run separate server/multiplexing/DLNA/uPNP/proprietary apps on the computer; many of these tend to be buggy or have poor performance.
(4) There was a free, fully-featured trial version (limited to 10 mins) so you can test it with your specific files, networks, needs, etc., and know whether or not it will work for you before you pay for the full version. I am very grateful for this because so many video players promise the world but are disappointing.
(5) There is a combo app available so you can buy once for both iPad and iPhone/iPod, or you can save a little money and buy a separate app for just the device size you need. I like options.

The only drawback I can think of is no access away from home. That feature is not important to me, but if it is important to you, you'll want something else.
 

jebbe

macrumors 6502
Jun 16, 2009
490
8
Louisville, KY
AVPlayerHD, it was gone for awhile but now is back. I use it on my phone all the time at work when I want to download a show and listen to it in the background, it plays most files.

Sometimes you'll see some stuttering but it's almost as if the phone is loading some of the video into memory for smoother playback, then it'll play fine.
 

navra233

macrumors newbie
Oct 17, 2012
29
0
Topplayer is a good video player for ipad. I do play movies, video songs over this player. :cool:
 
Last edited:

Carroll276

macrumors newbie
Jan 29, 2013
1
0
Perian has been discontinued, so the best way to play AVI files is by using VLC. You can download it here (copy and paste this url into your browser): http://www.videonlan.org
 

WilliamG

macrumors G3
Mar 29, 2008
9,919
3,800
Seattle
AVPlayerHD by some margin. Tried a few, this is by far the best in my opinion at playing back locally stored content. Supports hardware decoding of mkv's. For streaming, look elsewhere.

Be aware that most players don't support AC3 audio due to licensing issues. AVPlayerHd does. It disappeared off the store for ages for this reason, but returned a month or so ago.

Second this. AVPlayerHD plays absolutely everything I've ever thrown at it.
 

smoking monkey

macrumors 68020
Mar 5, 2008
2,330
1,460
I HUNGER
I have used
1. CinexPlayer
2. AVplayerHD
3. built in Apple Player
4. VLC

I use mp4, mv4 and AVI files. I do not use MKV files. I do not use streaming. All content stored on my ipad 2.

I like Cinex the best. It's got a clean interface and easy to use swipe forward and back.

AVplayerHD often lost sync for me with my AVI files. Apart from that, I liked it.

Built in Player is solid, but with no swipe controls it's really limited and every time I use it for older files, I get frustrated.

VLC... well, it's old and I feel buggy. It also seemed to lack the clarity of AVpHD and Cinex.
 

kamalds

macrumors regular
Dec 16, 2010
243
91
I use Oplayer hd on my iPad. Works for all files I tested, including vob files from DVDs.
 

crashnburn

macrumors 6502
Nov 18, 2009
466
28
Can any of them do variety of PLAYLISTS?

I'd like to use varying playlists for different workouts, music videos etc.
 
Last edited:

scottw324

macrumors 6502
Mar 5, 2012
453
1
It really depends on what your needs are. I have tried a few video players and all have their pros and cons.

I personally use eXPlayer because:

(1) I can skip forward and backward in a video using the scrubber bar and it always works. For some reason this seems to be a problematic feature in virtually all video players, even the venerable VLC desktop application.
(2) It supports the iPad's hardware video acceleration which provides smooth video and saves a ton of battery use. The vast majority of video apps do not use the iPad's acceleration so they drop frames on HQ video and blow away your battery.
(3) It supports SMB, so simply turn on file sharing for your Mac, PC, or SMB-capable NAS and you can view any video on your networked computer. This was crucial for me. I don't want to have to run separate server/multiplexing/DLNA/uPNP/proprietary apps on the computer; many of these tend to be buggy or have poor performance.
(4) There was a free, fully-featured trial version (limited to 10 mins) so you can test it with your specific files, networks, needs, etc., and know whether or not it will work for you before you pay for the full version. I am very grateful for this because so many video players promise the world but are disappointing.
(5) There is a combo app available so you can buy once for both iPad and iPhone/iPod, or you can save a little money and buy a separate app for just the device size you need. I like options.

The only drawback I can think of is no access away from home. That feature is not important to me, but if it is important to you, you'll want something else.

Thanks for the info. Sounds like a decent app. I use Airvideo for the most part for streaming my video content from my computer to my iPad. But I may give this a try too.
 
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